Cameras capture Perseid meteor shower

In the skies over Chickamauga, GA, cameras observed a Perseid fireball meteor on Sunday. (Source: NASA/MSFC/MEO)

(RNN) - The Perseid meteor shower peaked late Sunday, sparking the night sky with as many as 100 shooting stars per hour. More "fireworks" may be seen in the sky Monday night.

Four cameras at the NASA All Sky Fireball Network in Chickamauga, GA, captured a fireball meteor from the yearly phenomenon. It happens when the Earth travels through a region filled with left over debris lost by the Swift-Tuttle comet.

Fragments from the tail of the comet, which orbits the sun once every 130 years, were ripped off - causing the case of the Perseids. They hit the Earth's atmosphere at speeds between 7 to 44 miles per second.

According to NASA.gov, each fragment is approximately the size of a dime. But the more constant, sporadic meteoroids have been around much longer, breaking down over time into tiny fragments only about as wide as a piece of human hair.

Radar systems around the world were used to monitor minerals and metals such as sodium, silicon, calcium and magnesium.

Diego Janche, studies micrometeoroids at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Green belt, MD. He told NASA.gov, "The small meteoroids feed the atmosphere with all these extra materials.

"They come in, release metallic atoms that get deposited in the mesosphere and then get pushed around from pole to pole by the general global circulation," Janche said. "So by using the metals as tracers, you can answer some important questions about the general composition and movement of the atmosphere."